As of right now, there two weapon categories that simply have no little or no place in the game for no good reason what so ever, and I think this should not be the case, specially when they could fill their own nich situations very well if they get properly rework.
AT rifles: anti tank rifles are early infantry handheld weapons that where able to penetrate early tanks and disabled them from a distance. But in the game those weapons suffer from 3 issues that keeps them from been effective against tanks at long/medium range and outclassed at close range.
Lack of damage to tank parts: AT rifles for the most part are single shot and have a long reload time, so the ability to deal damage is a must for them to be effective, but currently this rifles can only one shot crew members when it penetrates the armor and struggle to damage the tank parts that it was designed to damage such as the tracks. And since they usually don’t have great penetration hitting the crew isn’t always an option.
Lack of accuracy: currently AT rifles aren’t accurate enough in the mid/long range to hit parts of the tank reliably even when mounting the weapon against the ground or a window, so even if you can hit the tank, you can’t aim for it’s weak spots, which in turn results in getting promptly killed without having any effect on the target, as such AT rifle users are pushed to get near of the tank, but at that point AT rifles get completely outclassed by hand held AT grenades and other point blank weapons.
Lack of penetration: AT rifles don’t really have the best penetration but currently they got even less penetration than they should, which for an AT weapon is the last nail in the coffin. AT rifles get relegated to destroying sand bags and AA weapons, just because the really lack power against tanks in this game.
Shotgun,there is little to say here, as this weapons get outclassed on every range by everything else, even before the buff starting rifles out classed every shotgun even in point blank range. Seriously dark flow the Berlin patch shotgun nerf was a mistake, no one asked for it, and it made a whole weapon category useless, even after the small shotgun buff handguns out class shotguns by far, as they are by far more reliable and are effective at 5 times the range if any shotgun. You do have the stats around this weapon, just look how many people kept using them after their first couple of battles. Si please give them at least the capacity of killing reliably at 50 meters, like a normal shotgun, with the ability of dealing damage beyond that.
Actually, the ATRs are performing quite authentically. If you hit the transmission or the engine you will do damage, but as you said yourself its only a single large caliber bullet, not an auto cannon round or a higher energy projectile. Hisorically, they were used to degrade optics(periscopes & epicscopes) running gear, or try to break track of the smaller tanks from the front. If feasible to attack from the flank, they were used to hit the fuel tanks or engine compartment.
The biggest issue you have is that they can’t be fired in volleys as they were IRL.
One of the future developments for the game should be that the Squad Leader, which only exists in tanks atm, should be able to give squad commands, and so in that way your leader can designate a tank target for all 3 of your AT gunners to fire at, all at the same time. You might get results that meet your expectations.
WRT Shotguns they are an FPS meme from other games, because… They were not used for combat if a better weapon was available for the job - which was the case just about all of the time.
For some reason, AT rifles (bullet firing ones, not HEAT ones) are laser accurate when sniping infantry, but appear to go bananas as soon as targeting a tank.
Well historically you should be able to destroy tracks in a single hit, but you can’t in game, that is the issue, AT rifles need to one shot certain weak spots to be worth using
US doctrine up to the Vietnam war would care to disagree with you. In urban combat the trench gun shined, but also it is about giving shotguns a reasonable performance chance like they used to have, instead of the paper buck that burns out of existence past 10 meters
No, I mean that they will regularly snipe small targets like foot soldiers at 100m+, yet as soon as a vehicle is in the crosshair, you aim at a weakspot with no results and the hitcam shows your bullet apparently impacting a totally different spot than where you aimed for.
Little bit offtopic but related to accuracy & penetration.
GRB the gift of darkgods against menace of t-50/34
For unknown reason it has fairly hard time to pen even t-28’s these days.
BT-7 shot on engine did absolutely nothing.
Shot on ammorack of t-28 took 3 direct hits before blowing up.
I’m not sure that’s quite true. It depends on the size of the track I would argue, but even then a single large bullet is unlikely to break a WWII tank track. Once you get up to 2cm you may be able to break track on a tankette or half track, but it would usually take multiple hits to do enough structural damage to break the track - ricochets notwithstanding.
US doctrine my have had some conops for shotguns, but by the same argument Soviet, British or German doctrine did not… Doctrinal theory aside they were very rarely used in WW2 because SMGs are better at the CQC job, and unlike the shotgun more effective at range, and since they utilised pistol cartridges, logistically more versatile.
The trench gun is a WWI concept which did work for trench warfare given the infancy of SMGs, but it was eventually replaced by them in the close combat role.
No that’s not true. They were added to prevent the Soviet ATR from penetrating the side plate between the road wheels and the upper casemate, often into the engine compartment and potentially the crew compartment when engaging at close range.
A. The US did use good numbers of shotguns in the war, they were commune where ever US troops operated.
B. I ain’t asking for shotguns to be better than SMGs, but for them to be usable as historically and realistically accurate, because that would give them a place in the game. Even if it isn’t a mayor one.
That was also a reason , still the track have always been a primary target for ATRs, and the side skirts where added to protect them from side attacks, that way the track became only vulnerable to frontal and rear attack which would be harder to pull off
I think this is now going off on a tangent. The designers have included shotguns in the game so its a moot point to cite doctrinal aspects, particularly if they apply only to the US, whereas all sides have them…
I don’t think that they are as weak in the game as you make them out to be, and I don’t use them on any of my troops, so I’m not arguing against re-buffing them per se.
I do think they’re meme weapons because as far as I’ve read they were used by exception, wheras their implementation in game is suggestive of far more widespread use - its a difference of opinion, at the end of the day nothing to get hung up about.
I don’t believe this is correct. The primary target for ATR were optics and any known weak points or weak armour areas, since you could exercise a modicum of precision. The tracks were more of a target for early AT guns such as the 37 or 34mm since they quickly became obsolete with standard ammunition once all sides started to add more armoured plates to their tanks.
While that was tried, it was proven to be ineffective very quickly, the lack of optical sights in ATRs, made aiming for sights a mater of luck, that target is way too small for iron sights at distances where ATRs tended to operate.
In early war, those guns could go for killing shots at the front or dudes of most tanks, so aiming for the tracks sound improbable unless you are talking to the 1941 T34 and KV1 shock
Well depending on what you read, many memoirs of tankers particularly those on the Eastern Front talk about constant damage to periscopes and episcopes, as well as constant sniping at CC’s /coupolas. Side Turret hatches, gunshields on HTs and some of the later war TDs were also mentioned quite often. I can’t recall off the top of my head where ATRs were specifically damaging tracks… Roadwheels, Sprockets and idlers, yes, but not tracks per se. In particular there are some good references that cite the use of ATRs in the battles around the Kursk salient - both north and south, and that’s as late as '43.
WRT to the iron sights, they’re no different from those on rifles, so if you could engage reasonably precisely out to 250-300m with a bolt action rifle, you could do the same with an ATR.